" The bitter melon plant bears bitter melon fruits. This is blood. This is destiny. Time and again, halos and wreaths, they are the fruits of nothing but bitterness. Bitter melons are not bitter since, as I have inscribed, I have fully tasted the bitterest of the bitterest."

"He deals with the weighty themes of love and loss with an extraordinary lightness of touch ..."

We were once children.

But few of us have sustained our curiosities, our boundless thoughts and imaginations, acute senses to the smallest and the most inconspicuous, the wonder-filled world ...

Many times, we do not understand why children have so many questions, why they do not behave as we wish, why they are always running around and cannot sit still, why they have such a behavioral or emotional response ...

We do not understand children even we were once one of them.

Holding the baby iza on my arms, i had an urge to survive her inborn sense of wonder, curiosity, imagination and the adventurous spirit throughout her growing path. I believe, all children are born with these.

20100713

This is not an image from a kaleidoscope but the dried up dye forEaster eggs.

Iza is always curious on " how do things look like SOME TIME LATER ? "

It is her observation game ... certain things look like as they are at a particular moment, in state which we are most familiar with, but they will change their form, color, smell, volume ... with time.

She has once pleaded for watching the change of state of an openedegg.The 28 days of observation was recorded here( II,III, IV). It was nothing serious and no great findings, but it was a fun guess game!

I tried to recall how iza first got started ...

Maybe ... this was it ... a piece of dried up glue she made at 2-3 Years old. She squeezed some glue onto a lid and placed 4 cotton buds into it. It then turned into something semi translucent, elastic and the buds were frozen as they were. I know it is nothing special to us. To a child, it might be something incredible.

About the dye ... originally, I was a bit reluctant to keep the pot of dye ... as a person easily irritate by disorganization, I got mad with iza's "here a bit and there a bit" ... and, I thought it would just remain as its original color which was a dark green. To satisfy her curiosity, I agreed though I did not fancy on this. But, she was so excited and said,

" I think it will turn into jelly. "

I thought she was silly ...

After almost 2 months, the dye has totally dried up. Instead of turning into opaque pigment of dark green or turning into jelly, it becomes crystalline in form.

The change of color is dramatic. For the dye, we originally mixed the same portion of red and green of organic food colorings. Out of my expectation, we did not get a dark grey or dark brown, but a dark green mixture. The red was dominant by the green. The dyeing result was magical too. The exterior of eggs became purple and the interior turned emerald green. From the dried up dye, we do not see traces of purple or red, but crystals of green, cyan, blue on the bottom ... some yellow and lime around the rim. I must admit that it is far beyond my imagination.

There was another day I saw iza dissolving a soluble crayon and mixing it with glue ...

I thought she was making her own acrylic paint :) In the dried up specimen, we found traces of blue, violet, cyan and some magenta ... so beautiful.

On the other day, she suggested another fun game ... using Easter eggs shells to make color pigments again.

We ground the red egg shells with small amount of water ... but it did not turn back into red dye ... then we put some red organic food coloring into it and let it dry again.

She then shared some portion of the mixture onto another plate ... and added some talcum powder and shampoo. It was no longer a liquid but a thick paste ... After 2 weeks, we discovered that the color of the first specimen will change during rainy days. The color of the second one with talcum powder is comparatively stable. Baby powder really serves its purpose of keeping dry!

Always we do not plan ahead for "experiments". Every case, I'm just following iza's instincts and be her helper. For our child, what is invaluable is not the experience or knowledge from the "experiments" but the enlivenment of CAPACITY OF LISTENING TO THE GENTLE VOICE IN HER HEART... the innate sense of wonder. This is what I miss, the most, for the whole school year. I enjoy watching iza following her passion, her inner call ... to wander, to question, to examine the wonder-filled world around her with SPONTANEITY. We aware that this sense of wonder and the capacity of curiosity will fade if we do not intentionally keep it alive ... the best we can do is to do LESS, to abandon the impulse to teach, to allow aimless activities, to accept messiness (!) ...

In this Summer, we plan to have no Summer course. It's the time to set our child free from programs and structures. It's the time to response to the calling of SPONTANEITY again. I can't wait anymore for the Summer holiday! It is only 2 days ahead.